Globally, 2.5 billion people, or 30% of the world’s population, are affected by drought. Drought.gov defines drought as an insidious natural hazard with far-reaching impacts that range from economic losses to loss of agriculture and livelihood that can cause or exacerbate water, food, and national security hazards. Although many places remain in drought, others wander in and out of it as weather conditions change. What if it were possible to better predict its occurrence? Throughout the world conservation efforts are much more commonplace, especially during times of drought, but how would behaviors change if a drought could be predicted sooner?

Duke University has developed a way to recognize the onset of drought sooner than current methods, which can take a month or more for data collection and distribution. The new technology is based on thermal stress, which takes into account the differences in temperature on the ground and in the plant canopy of a particular area. Canopies are typically cooled by the evaporation of water through small pores in a plant’s leaves, called stomata. During dry periods, water is less available and trees’ stomata close to conserve resources, consequently causing the canopy’s temperature to rise. Bijan Seyednasrollah, a 2017 graduate of the Nicholas School at Duke University, said, “This led us to speculate that the canopy-atmosphere differential could provide a simple but highly accurate indicator of drought-induced water stress on a continental scale during warm and dry seasons, when the threat of wildfires and other impacts is most severe and timely monitoring is essential.”[1]

This technology can be used to better understand regional conditions that indicate drought. James S. Clark, Nicholas Professor of Environmental Sciences at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, suggests that, “By combining surface and air temperature measurements from thousands of weather stations and satellite images, we can monitor current conditions across an entire region in near real time and identify the specific places where drought-induced thermal stress is occurring.”[2] The technology will facilitate more timely responses to regional water stress, enabling the implementation of water restrictions as drought is anticipated instead of after it is a reality. Additionally, it will also expose areas of forest dieback, a problem especially prevalent in the west, that can increase the risk of wildfires.

[1] “A Faster More Accurate Way to Monitor Drought.” A Faster More Accurate Way to Monitor Drought | Nicholas School of the Environment, 4 Mar. 2019, nicholas.duke.edu/about/news/faster-more-accurate-way-monitor-drought.

[2] “A Faster More Accurate Way to Monitor Drought.” A Faster More Accurate Way to Monitor Drought | Nicholas School of the Environment, 4 Mar. 2019, nicholas.duke.edu/about/news/faster-more-accurate-way-monitor-drought.